Aura Park (Dabin)

"Aura Park" sees Dabin once again tap into his vast reserves of emotion, and, once again, sees him channel it into the expansive melodic drops that continue to bring him success.

The euphoric supersaws and vocal-oriented song structures of melodic bass are infamous for being, after years of the what is practically the same song over and over again, rather stale; Dabin's music amongst their ranks, as with any other melodic bass producer — though Dabin has done a commendably good job at maintaining his sonic identity. "Aura Park", though, feels like a slightly different approach, one that isn't so worried about following a specific production formula, but one that strikes at emotion without the barrier of methodology in between. Perhaps that's what gives it strength — a will to live, if you please — and brings it a notch above the sea of blandness, as Dabin bounces between genres to create a cohesive tracklist that ranges across romance tropes and emotional appeal. From your typical melodic dubstep and pop influences, to heavier dubstep and alternative rock injections, plenty of house drops and even some drum n bass, "Aura Park" keeps you on your toes enough to be engaging, but Dabin's airy, melodic style permeates it all. This project isn't overly sanitary, which is always appreciated — the opener "Won't Be The Same" is not as reliant on vocals as this style typically is, and the heavier drops of "Night Bloom" and "Hollow" pack plenty of impact — but it's still bright and polished enough to maintain its commercial appeal, providing a surprisingly digestible 47 minutes of runtime that suits practically any audience: the casual EDM listener; the emotion-seeker; and even the basshead. And Dabin tops it off by marrying it with a star-studded set of vocalists, embedded with the likes of Trella and Grabbitz, alongside a couple of strong producer collaborations like Blanke and FrostTop. It's safe to say, then, that "Aura Park" is certainly a strong record, but unfortunately it doesn't quite feel like it blows melodic dubstep out of the water. Whilst it's certainly a sizeable step above your average melodic bass album, "Aura Park" still does fall into a lot of the tropes of the modern scene, despite not particularly looking for them, and that does make a lot of it a little boring. And some of these tracks feel carried by the vocals, with Dabin taking a little bit of a backseat, something that feels a little underwhelming in an album that was poised to feel so sonically authentic.

But I do maintain that this is one of the stronger melodic bass albums to come out of the genre, and, indeed, "Aura Park" is itself a fairly strong album. It was definitely missing something for me, but some of these tracks are fantastic, and Dabin has constructed a pretty quality-infused tracklist here. As far as melodic-ness fused with genuine emotion goes — in a more commercial environment — I do think Dabin has given a very strong showing here.